Pirate Bay Founder Hacking Sentence Slashed in Half on Appeal

After being arrested at his home in Cambodia in 2012, earlier this year Gottfrid Svartholm was found guilty of hacking a Swedish IT company and a local bank. His appeal was heard earlier this month and today the Court of Appeal handed down its decision. The popular Swede, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, had mixed fortunes. He was found guilty of hacking Logica but cleared of hacking the bank. His sentence was reduced from two years to just one.

In May 2013, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm went on trial following allegations that the hacked into Logica, a Swedish IT company working with local tax authorities, and local bank Nordea.

Following a two-week trial during which the Swede protested his innocence, the Nacka District Court handed down its verdict. Gottfrid was found guilty of hacking, aggravated fraud and attempted aggravated fraud, and was handed a two-year jail sentence.

The decision was unpopular with both the defense and prosecution. The latter felt that the sentence was not harsh enough and the former objected on the basis that the District Court didn’t examine the available evidence in enough detail.

“The important thing is to get the higher court to try the evidence in-depth, something that the lower court definitively didn’t do,” Kristina Svartholm, Gottfrid’s mother, previously told TorrentFreak.

In July it was announced that the case would go to appeal and earlier this month the process took place. The Court of Appeal heard testimony from Tor developer and former Wikileaks spokesman Jacob Appelbaum who argued that Gottfrid’s theory – that his computer had been taken over and abused remotely – was a sound one.

A few moments ago the Court of Appeal handed down its decision and it was mixed fortunes for the 28-year-old.

The Court upheld the guilty verdict in the hacking of IT company Logica, but overturned the guilty verdict handed down in respect of the breach at the Nordea bank.

As a result the two-year jail sentence handed down earlier in 2013 was slashed to just one year.

Update: Danish media is now reporting that Gottfrid will be extradited to Denmark to face charges in another unrelated case. He is one of two men suspected of gaining access to driving records and the social security numbers of millions of Danes.

“We already have an arrest warrant and a request for extradition on the Swedish man, and he will be extradited to Denmark within a few days,” said Police Commissioner Hans Erik Raben of Copenhagen Police. An alleged accomplice, a 20-year-old man, is already in custody.